


Hour of my deepest need

by Silver_Rabbit



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Crying, Drinking, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Phone Call, Post-Break Up, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-08
Updated: 2019-06-08
Packaged: 2020-04-23 02:49:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19142050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silver_Rabbit/pseuds/Silver_Rabbit
Summary: A very late night phone conversation between Louis and Harry.





	Hour of my deepest need

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired By Ezra Furman's song Hour of my deepest need. It's also where the title and a few lines of the dialogue come from, I just couldn't help myself.  
> This has been sitting on my computer for months so i thought i'd share it before I lose it, like I've lost many stories before, I hope you enjoy it.

It was the kind of night when the lit up screen of the phone feels out of place. This kind of night shouldn’t have any distractions in it, Louis thought, looking out at the full moon shining through lightly clouded sky. 

This kind of night shouldn’t exist in this century. It felt alive, wrapped around him like a thick blanket, heavy with silence. This night was old, it was patient to the pain in his chest. He found comfort in the way it made him feel insignificant, small in the universe filled with beauty and ugliness.

He looked down on the screen on his phone, staring at the achingly familiar photo of the dimpled boy that made his heart sink. He glanced at the phone number under it, squeezing his eyes shut for a second, before reaching for the whiskey glass on the windowsill in front of him, they call it liquid courage for a reason, he thought, as he tried to ignore the burning of his throat, waiting for it to numb his body and soul.

He pressed the call button before he could change his mind. He pressed his teeth together and closed his eyes as he waited for the deep voice to appear in his ears. He didn’t think about what he was going to say, or about anything, really. He let his old habit to rush into things take over, just this once, damned be the consequences. 

He listened to his breathing for a few seconds after he picked up, not daring to speak yet. Silence weighted heavy and calm over his body. If he couldn’t have anything more, he’d be happy to just breathe with Harry for a while.

“Lou” Harry breathed out, simple as that, a recognition, acknowledgment, just a few waves of air. Louis let the first teardrop slowly roll down his cheek.

“Hey H” he whispered. He didn’t know what to say, didn’t really prepare a speech, he had no words that would change everything, anything even, no magical answer to the unspoken questions stretching for miles and miles between them. He wondered if somehow, in some other world, this faded presence could be enough.

“You know” Louis said like it wasn’t three in the morning. “I think it’s time you show your face and come to my place.”  
He could imagine his face so vividly, after years of studying every muscle on his body closely, he could almost see the sad smile on his red, bitten lips, eyes glued to the floor, patient, as always, knowing to wait, unlike Louis.

“I can’t share this whiskey with you through the phone.” He added before he could get lost in his head, maybe Harry wouldn’t notice that the chuckle at the end of his sentence sounded more like a sob, or a plea, or desperation, or three am crazy thoughts he’d regret tomorrow but there was no tomorrow, and no yesterday. There was just this moment, moonlight on his face and familiar breaths in his ear.

“Maybe, yeah… uh… yeah sure, when we both are free.” Harry said slowly, like he meant it, like it would actually happen, like he would show up at his door, smile making his eyes greener with warmth. Louis knew better than to believe him, but he needed this, needed to pretend because he could believe in this moment that he’d actually come.

“…and if we drink enough of it, you might just get me to admit that I never knew quite how to be alone.” Louis knew he shouldn’t have said that, shouldn’t have called at all, shouldn’t be honest with him right now, because how can they heal if they hurt and how can they stop hurting if they’re honest, but fuck it, he thought, he could be selfish, just for the night. 

He expected Harry to get mad at that, or maybe sad, or maybe hang up, or yell at him, what he didn’t expect was for Harry to give in.

“We can sit on your back steps and intertwine our fingertips while we talk about the nice things that we once had.” Harry said, and Louis could almost hear the tears he probably tried to blink away. Maybe Harry needed it too, just a small, forgettable moment of weakness.

“…and if the turntable still starts you could teach me how to waltz, and I’ll teach you how to feel really, really bad” Louis said, he couldn’t help but smile at the distant memories of them. After meeting Harry, he’d never thought he’d ever have to learn to exist on his own again. 

The emptiness in his chest was all-consuming and all he could do was give into pain, because once your body is too tired of fighting and you finally let the sadness wash over you, you realize, it doesn’t really kill you, it’s just there and it stays for a while but you know, you know, someday it will go away. Sometimes you just gotta let the wounds bleed, let it hurt, let it destroy you so you can rebuild.

“Sometimes I wonder” Louis said after silence stretched for too long “if there’s really someone or something counting all the good and bad we do. If there’s heaven and hell, if there’s anything at all, after we die.”

“Why are you thinking about that, Lou” Harry asked, calm but rushing his words, concerned, always concerned. Louis doesn’t want to move on, god he never wants to stop loving him, if this pain is all he can keep then he wants to hurt forever.

“Just wondering, forget about it, it’s stupid.” He breathed out in frustration, what he wouldn’t give right now to feel the touch of his skin just one more time. “I hate that you’re so far away.” He dared to add, because what did he have to lose, really.

“I’m just a few blocks away.” Harry said quietly, little bit of confusion in his voice.

“We could have a thousand miles between us and yet it couldn’t make the distance any longer.”

“Lou… please, don’t…” Harry breathed out in defeat.

“I know, I’m sorry, fuck…” Louis said, rubbing his face to come up with something to say “it just sucks. It just hurts so badly right now.” Tears were burning his cheeks. His head was spinning, stuck, he was stuck in this feeling, in this world, in this body.

“I know it does, I know it hurts Lou, but we tried, we did…” Harry choked out from the other side of the line, defeated, raw, they were long done tiptoeing around each other.

“I just wish I could turn back time, I want to be when nothing really mattered but us.” At this time of the night no argument sounded valid enough. There was no rational decision, no right thing to go, no healthy, no nothing, just the itchy feeling of longing.

“And then we grew up” Harry said bitterly. “Some cracks just go too deep to be fixed Lou, you told me that.”

“I love you” Louis whispered, trying to silence the sobs. “I love you so painfully.”

“I love you, too.” Harry said and it sounded broken, broken like them. “And Lou?”

“Yeah?”

“I know it hurts, but it’s supposed to, that’s how you know it was real and it was, it was real and beautiful and it was everything. I promise you, you’re going to be just fine. You just need a little time, love, just give yourself a little time.” Harry said. “We’re going to be fine. Both of us, I promise.”

“...Okay.” Louis whispered.

They didn’t speak any more that night, just stood in silence for a while, breathing. Breathing until Louis was brave enough to hang up. He knew, in the morning it would feel like a distant dream and if he deleted his call history, he might pretend that’s all it was.

**Author's Note:**

> I usually never do stories this short but I don't know... I just feel like sometimes one moment is all we got and it doesn't matter who's right or wrong, what's the backstory or whatever. how we feel about things is what makes them real. 
> 
> anyway, thanks for reading lovelies.  
> as always, any form of feedback is greatly appreciated.


End file.
